web designers

If this is the first time that you have been involved with the creation of a website, you might not have understood what members of the team meant when they mentioned the alpha and the beta stages of the web development process. These stages are actually part of the cycle that brings a website to life, and they are vital if you want to ensure that the client is happy with the finished product. So, what are the alpha and beta stages?

Alpha

This stage is the part of the process that involves the web development team presenting their ideas to the client, who will then approve any ideas that they like and dismiss those that they don’t. This will not only include the design; the client also has final say on the functionality, layout and other elements of a website.

Beta

This stage is the part of the process that involves the website being coded and tested. The designs approved by the client in the alpha stage are coded so that they are completely functional on the internet; the client is then provided with a copy of what the website will look like and testing commences to make sure that everything is working as expected.

These are not, of course, the only stages involved in the web development process – there are many other steps that must be completed before and after the alpha and beta stages to ensure that the finished website meets the client’s expectations, including: the pre-alpha stage (which involves idea conception) and release stages (which involve the site being made ‘live’).

Behind many of the bad websites on the internet are incompetent or amateur designers who simply could not do any better. Behind the rest of the bad sites are web designers who really were capable of much more – they just simply settled and were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It is often said that high quality work brings about high quality work, whilst low quality work brings about low quality work. By doing high quality projects as a web designer, you are more likely to receive similar projects in the future. Do low quality projects, and you are likely to receive the same requests.

If this hasn’t been enough to convince you not to settle, perhaps the following reasons will:

By pushing yourself, you will improve your skills
When web designers settle for low quality clients or the easiest way to do something, they are never going to improve their skills. If you push yourself to complete your work in the best way possible, however, you will constantly improve.

The right sort of clients will respect you moreGood clients will respect a designer who has standards and sticks to them no matter what – it indicates to them that they will be receiving the best quality work possible.

Your peers will respect you moreWeb designers tend to respect (and look up to) others in the industry who consistently produce excellent quality work. Whilst there are people who could care less what their peers think, others think that being respected is a sign of their impact on the industry.

At the end of the day, settling for low quality clients and projects will eventually kill your career as a web designer. If this is not the most compelling reason that you shouldn’t settle, then nothing else will convince you. Stand up for yourself and your standards, and you will reap the rewards in the end.

It is no secret that psychology is useful in a range of industries, not just in the realm of science and counseling, but have you ever considered that it would be beneficial for a web designer to have a basic knowledge of some elements of psychology? Understanding how the human mind works can go a long way to ensuring that a designer is creating the best designs possible.

Web Design

Essentially, people will visit a website much for the same reason that they would enter a store or a business – they want to buy or achieve something. Perhaps they are researching a company or a product, or they want to learn how to do something – either way, it is the job of the web designer to ascertain the reasons why people will visit their website and to create the pages accordingly.

Just because someone has visited your website, however, doesn’t mean that they are definitely going to employ your company or buy your products. So, how can a web designer make them do this? Most commonly, through the use of psychological persuasion. You can do this through including a page for testimonials, or making the site ‘likeable’. This will help to compel potential clients or customers to take your business seriously.

A more recent psychological approach for web designers is that of neuro science, mostly for the images that they include on their website. If a website increases the stress of a user because it is too confusing or complex, they are less likely to return or engage with it.

By looking at the areas of websites that could benefit from some psychological understanding, web designers can hugely improve the turnover rate and the usability of their designs.